the moral dimension of the prophetic ideal: pushkin and his readers

The Moral Dimension of the Prophetic Ideal: Pushkin and His ReadersAuthor(s): Pamela DavidsonSource: Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 490-518Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3090299 .

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ARTICLES

The Moral Dimension of the Prophetic Ideal:

Pushkin and His Readers

Pamela Davidson

The Writer as Prophet in the Russian Literary Tradition

The image of the writer as a divinely inspired prophet, responsible for

shaping the spiritual and moral destiny of the nation, has played an un-

usually important and distinctive role in the development of the Russian

literary tradition. It first established itself in the verse of Gavriil Derzhavin and Mikhail Lomonosov, but did not become widespread until the time of Romanticism, when the Decembrist poets turned to the figure of the

prophet as a powerful rhetorical image to buttress their authority as the

proponents of radical social and political reform. This historical context determined the mainstream interpretation of Aleksandr Pushkin's celebrated poem "Prorok" (The prophet, 1826) as a key text, referring primarily to the poet as a prophetic figure, rather than just to the prophet. By a curious process of transposition, this reading was then superimposed onto the image of its author, who came to be regarded as the iconic embodiment ofthe prophet described in his poem and, in due course, as the

founding father of the view of Russian literature as innately prophetic. The first attempts at developing some sort of a theoretical justification

for this approach were made in the 1830s and 1840s by Nikolai Gogol' and

Vissarion Belinskii in their critical assessments of Pushkin's significance as Russia's national poet.1 The process that they initiated reached a peak in

Fedor Dostoevskii's celebrated speech of 1880, which elevated Pushkin to the status of national prophet and thereby prepared the ground for Dos? toevskii's own assumption of this role.2 Vladimir Solov'ev inherited this

This article forms part of a wider project on the development of the image of the writer as

prophet in the Russian literary tradition. I am extremely grateful to the British Academy for the award of a two-year Research Readership in 1997-99 and to the Arts and Human- ities Research Board for a grant for research leave in 2000-2001 that enabled me to in-

vestigate this topic. 1. For an early view of Pushkin's prophetic qualities, based on his use of language, see

N. V. Gogol', "Neskol'ko slov o Pushkine" (dated 1832, revised 1834, first published Janu- ary 1835), in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, ed. N. L. Meshcheriakov et al., 14 vols. (Moscow- Leningrad, 1937-52), 8:50-55 (hereafter, PSS). Around the same time, Belinskii intro- duced the concept of the poet-prophet into Russian literary criticism by describing the "veshchii, prorocheskii glagol" of Derzhavin's verse in terms that directly echoed Pushkin's "Prorok"; see V G. Belinskii, "Literaturnye mechtaniia (Elegiia v proze)" (dated 12 De- cember 1834, first published in a series of issues otMolva, passed by the censor between 21 September and 29 December 1834), in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1953-59), 1:48. Both Gogol' and Belinskii continued to develop the theme of Pushkin's

prophetic and narodnyi qualities during the 1840s. 2. F. M. Dostoevskii, "Pushkin (Ocherk)," in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati

tomakh, ed. V G. Bazanov et al., 30 vols. (Leningrad, 1972-90), 26:136-49 (Dnevnik pisatelia, August 1880, chap. 2).

Slavic Review 61, no. 3 (Fall 2002)



The Moral Dimension of the Prophetic Ideal 491

tradition and played an important role in determining its future development. He was the first Russian writer to undertake a serious study of the Hebrew prophets and to establish the Russian attitude toward prophecy on a new, historically grounded, religious and philosophical footing.3 The life and works of Lev Tolstoi and his followers were also strongly marked

by a sense ofthe writer's prophetic calling. After these varied contributions, the idea that the Russian writer was a prophet, carrying on or completing the task ofthe biblical prophets, became firmly ingrained in the worldview of the religious symbolists and their acmeist and futurist successors. It continued to inform the work of later writers as diverse as Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. One can even detect a sec- ularized travesty ofthe ideal in the cult ofthe writer as an "engineer ofthe human soul," propounded by the adherents of socialist realism.

Critics as well as writers have made a substantial contribution to the tradition of reading Russian literature in terms of its relation to the ideal ofthe poet-prophet, usually represented by them as part of Pushkin's legacy. This interpretive method has become so entrenched that it is some? times even applied to the most unlikely source materials. The well-known

emigre critic, Mikhail Epshtein, for example, presented the impersonal, dehumanized Moscow poetry ofthe 1980s as a natural continuation ofthe

"path ofthe poet-prophet, bequeathed to us by Pushkin," arguing that the

inert, lifeless quality of this verse corresponds to the stage when Pushkin's

prophet lies like a corpse in the wilderness, immediately before under-

going a full spiritual revival; in his concluding words he warned that those who see only inhuman deformity and a mechanical assembly of details in such verse fail to realize that it is precisely from this source that they will soon hear "words, conveying the thought and will of God."4 The same ten-

dency continues to flourish in the current post-perestroika era, as literary societies all over Russia busily occupy themselves with reconstructing the

image of such nineteenth-century writers as Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Leskov in the light of the prophetic model.5

This brief outline, although necessarily condensed, serves to remind us of the extent to which the image of the writer as prophet has func? tioned as one of the key notions around which the Russian literary tradi? tion has constructed itself. While its significance as a cultural phenome? non is widely acknowledged, it has not been accorded the close critical

study it deserves. Although it is generally recognized that Russian writers turned to the Hebrew prophets as their main source and model, little attention has been paid to the tensions that this choice engendered or to its

long-term literary consequences.

3. See Pamela Davidson, "Vladimir Solov'ev and the Ideal of Prophecy," Slavonic and East European Review 78, no. 4 (October 2000): 643-70.

4. See the chapter "'Kak trup v pustyne ia lezhal . . .'" (1987), in Mikhail Epshtein, Vera i obraz: Religioznoe bessoznatel'noe v russkoi kul'ture 20-go veka (Tenafly, N.J., 1994), 85.

5. Private communication from Sergei Borisovich Filatov of the Moscow Public Sci? ence Foundation and Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, after a talk on "Religion in the Russian Federation today," delivered on 15 November 2000 at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London.



492 Slavic Review

In this article I will endeavor to remedy part of this deficiency by ex-

amining one crucial area of tension and some of the literary strategies that evolved in response to it. An inevitable clash resulted from the considerable disparity between the rigorous discipline of moral purity, which was a prerequisite for the Hebrew ideal of prophecy, and the much laxer moral standards of Russian writers. How did Russian writers who turned to the Hebrew prophets as role models respond to this discrepancy? In or? der to answer this question, I shall first give a brief exposition of the moral dimension of Hebrew prophecy and then investigate some of the literary strategies developed by Russian writers to narrow the gap between this as-

pect of their chosen model and their own literary tradition. For this purpose, I shall focus on a range of responses to Pushkin's moral qualifications for the role of prophet, as he was widely regarded as the prototype of the poet-prophet. My approach will be analytical rather than chrono-

logical. The intention is to set up a model for a possible approach to this issue and to examine its legacy; limitations of space preclude the further investigation of its development in time or application to additional authors.

The Moral Dimension of the Hebrew Ideal of Prophecy

Spiritual and moral purity were a necessary precondition for the pro? phetic calling. This is clearly stated by one of the leading authorities on

prophecy, the twelfth-centuryJewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, who derives the principle that "preparation and perfection of moral and ra- tional faculties are the sine qua non" of prophecy from the statement of the sages that "the spirit of prophecy only rests upon persons who are wise,

strong, and rich."6 The Hebrew prophet was not plucked at random from his surround-

ings; he was chosen as an individual who had already achieved a high spir? itual and moral level and was often required to undergo a further stage of

preparation, which could well entail a complete break with his previous life and familiar environment. This can be seen from the example of the

very first of the Hebrew prophets, Abraham, who succeeded in reaching great spiritual heights despite the fact that he grew up in the house of an idolater. Before he could undertake his prophetic mission, however, he was commanded to leave his father's house, his birthplace and his coun-

try.7 For a similar reason, Moses was taken from his mother into the house of Pharoah in order to be prepared for his future role as the leader of his people.8 The first of the early prophets, Samuel, although he already held impeccable credentials as the son of two prominent prophets, Elka- nah and Hannah, was nevertheless handed over by his parents to be raised

6. Moses Maimonides, The Guidefor the Perplexed, trans. from the original Arabic text by M. Friedlander, 2d rev. ed. (New York, [1956]), 220. For a comprehensive overview of

prophecy, see part 2, chaps. 32-48 (219-50) of this work. 7. Genesisl2:l. 8. Exodus2:10.




in the house of the Lord under the guidance of another important prophet, Eli.9

Entire groups as well as individuals could also be prepared in this way for the prophetic calling. In the Book of Samuel we read of the first pro? phetic communities that began to appear in Israel at this time.10 Samuel

taught his disciples the Torah at Naioth in Ramah, where those aspiring to

prophecy were trained to prepare themselves by purifying their thoughts and deeds.11 Although little is known about these early communities, they evidently continued to grow and spread over the country, providing a suc- cession of men animated by the prophetic spirit who cultivated a form of ecstatic worship and praise of the Lord accompanied with music.12

The pursuit of moral and spiritual purification remained a constant element ofthe prophet's life; it was not a goal that could be achieved once and for all and thereafter set aside. Hence the numerous tests and trials that feature so prominently in the lives of the prophets: Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his beloved son; Jacob was tricked into marrying the wrong wife and then separated from his favorite son for many years; and King David was persecuted by his enemies throughout most of his life.

The intrinsic connection between the gift of prophecy and the re-

quirement to abide by divine moral law is perhaps best epitomized by the

figure of Moses, who combined the highest level of prophecy with the role of lawgiver. Before exploring how Russian writers related to this ideal, we should consider one final question: was it possible from a biblical point of view for a genuine prophet to exist outside this moral framework? In the case of the Hebrew prophets, this was clearly impossible.13 We should, however, note the unusual case of Balaam, the prophet appointed by God for the gentile nations. Balaam was an unprincipled, sinful person, moti- vated by personal ambition and greed, who was hired by King Balak of Moab to curse Israel.14 In this respect he was the total antithesis of Moses,

9. 1 Samuel 2:22-28. On Midrashic sources regarding Elkanah's role as an unknown prophet, see the Introduction, in Rabbi A. J. Rosenberg, ed. and trans., SamuelI: A NewEn- glish Translation ofthe Text and Rashi, with a Commentary Digest (New York, 1984), viii. Like her husband, Hannah was favored with the gift of prophecy. She is counted among the seven prophetesses in the Talmud (Megillah 14a) and in Seder Olam (chap. 20). Her prayer of thanksgiving after bringing Samuel to the Tabernacle (1 Samuel 2:1-10) has tradition- ally been interpreted as a prophecy of Jewish history. See ibid., ix (introduction) and 14- 18 (text of prayer and commentary).

10. King Saul encounters a "band of prophets" at "the hill of God," where the Holy Ark was stationed, and begins to prophesy under their influence (1 Samuel 10:5-6,10). Later he sends messengers, who see Samuel standing as head over a "company of prophets" at Naioth in Ramah; three successive delegations of messengers, followed by Saul himself, are in turn infected with the spirit of prophecy (1 Samuel 19:20-24).

11. See the commentaries on these verses in Rosenberg, ed. and trans., SamuelI, 76- 78, 163-64.

12. In the times of Elisha, for example, the "sons of the prophets" told Elisha that the place where they dwelt was too small for them and requested permission to move to the Jordan to build a larger dwelling-place for themselves (2 Kings 6:1-2). The connection between prophecy and music is also mentioned later in relation to Elisha (2 Kings 3:15).

13. Here we are not concerned with false prophets, against whom numerous explicit warnings are issued in the Hebrew scriptures.

14. Numbers 22-24.



494 Slavic Review

who embodied the link between moral law and prophecy and was distin-

guished by his selflessness and humility. Balaam's story demonstrates that a gentile may become a prophet, even if he is an immoral individual, should God decide to bestow this gift upon him. This is a significant precedent, insofar as many of the later literary prophets of Russia did not abide by conventional moral standards; according to the example of

Balaam, failing to lead a moral life would not necessarily debar them from the prophetic role, provided that they acted under divine inspiration.

Literary Responses to the Moral Dimension of the Prophetic Ideal

Not surprisingly, given Balaam's tarnished reputation, most Russian writ? ers preferred to follow the traditional role model ofthe Hebrew prophets. Although they often overlaid this source with later incarnations of the

prophetic image (classical, Romantic, literary, mystic, and political), they retained a remarkably strong allegiance to the original prototype of the Hebrew prophet. In this way, whether consciously or unconsciously, they were subscribing to a long-standing national tradition that could be traced all the way back to the eleventh-century priest Ilarion, the earliest writer to articulate the mission of the Rus' in the context of biblical

prophecy.15 The choice of the Hebrew prophet as a model conferred a

unique historical importance upon writers; at the same time it obliged them to formulate some sort of a response to the standard of moral and

spiritual purity that was associated with this ideal. Inevitably, the discrepancy between their adopted model and their own behavior and beliefs was the source of a crucial tension in their lives and writings. Although in

principle they subscribed to the ideal of moral purity, in practice they varied considerably in their willingness or ability to implement it in their own

lives, and in the significance they assigned to it when evaluating the pro? phetic qualities of other writers. By and large, their responses to the moral dimension of the prophetic ideal can be divided into three categories, each of which in turn generated a further level of response among con-

temporary and later readers. Some writers did not aspire to embrace the role of prophet in their own lives and therefore made no particular claim to have achieved the associated ideal of moral purity. Among writers who wished to be seen as prophets, some attempted to espouse the moral ideal as a means to this end, while others preferred to bypass the preparatory moral stage or ignored it altogether. The same range of attitudes naturally also informed the assessment of other writers as potential prophets.

In this article I shall take as my main focus a writer from the first cate-

gory, Pushkin, who made no claim to be a prophet but was nevertheless

singled out for this role by posterity. There are two principal reasons for

concentrating on Pushkin and his reception. His special position as the "father of Russian literature" meant that those who advocated the view of

15. See Ilarion's sermon "On Law and Grace" (Slovo o zakone i blagodati, ca. 1047- 50), in Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus\ trans. and with an introduction by Simon Franklin, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, vol. 5 (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 3-29.




the writer as a prophet were under considerable pressure to demonstrate

that Pushkin was the prototype of the poet-prophet and possessed the

necessary moral qualifications for this role. At the same time, the fact that Pushkin did not naturally conform to this ideal makes it easier to identify the various strategies that were adopted to present him in this light.

Pushkins Distinction between Poet and Prophet

To appreciate the degree of distortion that was involved in the construction of the image of Pushkin as prophet, we first need to clarify the poet's own view of the relationship between poetry and prophecy. Two closely related questions need to be addressed. First, to what extent did Pushkin

identify the poet with the prophet? Second, did he aspire to embrace the

image of the poet-prophet in his own life? Pushkin deals with the poet and the prophet in a wide variety of texts,

some of which do indeed suggest the possibility of drawing a parallel be? tween the two figures.16 Although limitations of space preclude extensive discussion of these sources, a few examples will elucidate the basis for such a link. An important text for this purpose is the cycle of nine poems, "Podrazhaniia Koranu" (Imitations of the Koran), composed between

September and November 1824. The inclusion of certain motifs of a personal autobiographical character, together with the marked emphasis throughout the cycle on the power of language, has led many readers and critics to associate the prophet represented in the cycle with the figure of the poet in general and, by extension, with Pushkin himself.17 Further

support for this association has been found in a letter that Pushkin wrote to Petr Viazemskii around the time when he completed the cycle. After

confessing that he had just gambled away his manuscript collection of

poems, he added: "in the meantime I was forced to flee from Mecca to

Medina, my Koran was dispersed between different hands?and to this

16. For one of the earliest systematic studies of the image of the poet-prophet in Pushkin's verse, see N. V Fridman, "Obraz poeta-proroka v lirike Pushkina," Uchenye zapiski Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 118, Trudy kafedry russkoi literatury, no. 2 (1946): 83-107. Fridman covers a wide range of examples; his overall interpretation of their significance, however, is marred by a distorted emphasis on the social and civic di- mensions of the image of the poet-prophet. For a more recent treatment of Pushkin's use of the image of the poet-prophet, set in its contemporary context, see B. M. Gasparov, Poeticheskii iazyk Pushkina kakfakt istorii russkogo literaturnogo iazyka (St. Petersburg, 1999), particularly chap. 1 of pt. 3, "Poet-prorok (Eskhatologicheskie i profeticheskie motivy v zrelom tvorchestve Pushkina," 231-55.

17. The importance of the power of language was underlined by Pushkin in his notes to the cycle: "nravstvennye istiny izlozheny v Korane sil'nym i poeticheskim obrazom"; "plokhaia fizika; no za to kakaia smelaia poeziia!" Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, ed. V D. Bonch-Bruevich, 17 vols. (Moscow, 1937-59; reprint, Moscow, 1994-97), 2/1:318 (hereafterPSS).

On Pushkin as poet-prophet, see, for example, Fridman, "Obraz poeta-proroka," 85- 93, and B. Tomashevskii, Pushkin, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Moscow, 1990), 2:279-303. Tomashevskii finds an autobiographical motif in Pushkin's substitution of exile for orphanhood in the cycle. He also notes the poet's introduction of a theme absent in the Koran, "temu vlasti iazyka, mogushchestva slova" and "silu slova," in lieu of the "tema poucheniia" present in theoriginal (2:282).



496 Slavic Review

day the faithful await it."18 In comparing himself en route from Odessa to Mikhailovskoe without his poems to the prophet Mohammed traveling from Mecca to Medina without his Koran, Pushkin is using a literary text of his own making to underline the contrast between the confusion of his own life and the prophet's sense of purpose. The act of creative empathy involved in writing the cycle may have succeeded in creating a temporary, alternative persona for the poet, based on the image of the poet-prophet, but this role, although persuasively built up and embraced in verse, crum- bles in the face of real life.

Another poem that has played an important role in establishing the

prophetic image of the poet and of Pushkin is "Andrei Shen'e" (Andre Chenier, May-June 1825). Its presentation ofthe French poet, Chenier, who was executed on the eve of Robespierre's fall for his monarchist views and went to the guillotine reciting poetry, provides a striking image of the

poet as prophetic spokesman, faithful to the cause of freedom until the end. Most of Pushkin's elegy consists of Chenier's own verse declamation as he is led to his execution; the section that concerns us contains a remarkable meditation on the nature of the poetic word?is it a mere

"empty sound" (zvukpustoi) or a powerful "scourge" (bich)? The prophetic aspect of the poetic word is demonstrated at the end of this final tirade, when Pushkin has Chenier utter a fierce prophecy, aimed at Robespierre, addressed as a "savage beast" (svirepyi zver') and "godless man" (bezbozhnyi); the fact that he remains unnamed allowed these lines to be read out of context as an address to the current tsar:

H nac npnêT ... h oh y)K HeâjieK: naênib, THpaH! HeroÔBaHbe BocnpflHeT HaKOHeiT. OTenecTBa pbiâHbe Pa36yOTT yTOMjieHHbiH poK.

(And the hour will come . . . and it is not far: You will fall, tyrant! Indignation Will rise up at last. The wails of the fatherland Will awaken wearied fate.)19

The word rok (fate), rhymed with nedalek (not far), seems to beg its usual companion rhyme prorok (prophet). And indeed, the tsar died on 19 November, some five or six months after Pushkin wrote these lines. A few weeks later, Pushkin gleefully wrote to his friend the Decembrist Petr Pletnev: "Dear soul! I am a prophet, really and truly a prophet! I order 'Andre Chenier' to be printed in ecclesiastical script in the name of the Father and Son etc."20 He is evidently referring to his "prophecy" of the ruler's fall, contained in the lines cited; we may also surmise that, when the Decembrist uprising took place just over a week later, he would have found further prophetic significance in the next lines, beginning "Indig? nation will rise up at last." This was certainly the way in which Pushkin's

18. Letter to P. A. Viazemskii of 29 November 1824, in A. S. Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii, ed. D. D. Blagoi et al., 10 vols. (Moscow, 1974-78), 9:116.

19. Pushkin, PSS, 2/1:355. 20. Letter to P. A. Pletnev of 4-6 December 1825, in Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii,

9:207.




contemporaries responded to the poem?manuscript copies of a cen- sored fragment from the elegy with the incorrect title "Na 14-oe dekabria"

(On 14 December) began to circulate after the uprising, eventually com-

ing to the attention of the government and leading to a full-scale inquiry.21 We can see, therefore, that "Andre Chenier" made a considerable con-

tribution to the image of the poet-prophet, both through Pushkin's presentation of Chenier as a prophetic poet, marked by a tragic fate, and

through his incorporation into the poem of a "true" prophecy uttered

by Chenier, which acquired a second life and came true once more in Pushkin's lifetime. Its presentation of the poet as a prophet complemented and confirmed the earlier suggestion of the prophet as a poet, found in "Imitations of the Koran."

Although Pushkin's "The Prophet," written in the following year, contains no references to the poet and appears to deal only with the figure of the prophet, it has commonly been read as a poem about the ideal of the

poet as prophet, allegedly embraced by Pushkin. In support of this read-

ing, critics from Vladimir Solov'ev onwards have pointed to the poem's emphasis on the transformation of the prophet's senses of vision and

hearing (absent from biblical accounts), arguing that this reflects a concern with the poet's heightened perception of the world around him. In

addition, textual links between "The Prophet" and "Imitations of the Ko?

ran," as well as reminiscences of "The Prophet" in the later "Poet" (The

poet, 15 August 1827) have been invoked as further evidence that "The

Prophet" deals with the figure of the poet, east as prophet. As in the case of "Andre Chenier," biographical circumstances connected with the

poem's composition (discussed below) facilitated the application of this

image to Pushkin, viewed as the incarnation of the poet-prophet described in his poem.

In this way, readers have traced the image of the poet-prophet in Pushkin's verse all the way through to the end of his life. His famous late

poem, "Ia pamiatnik sebe vozdvig nerukotvornyi ..." (I have raised a memorial to myself not made by human hand . . . , 21 August 1836) has been presented as the high point of the poet's prophetic self-awareness, in which he predicts his own posthumous fate and then delivers a message to later generations about the prophetic function of poetry: "Velen'iu

Bozhiiu, o muza, bud' poslushna" (To the divine will, o muse, be obedi-

ent).22 Pushkin's solemn injunction to the muse is taken as evidence of his belief that the poet should fulfill the function of a prophet, articulating the will ofGod.23

21. Ibid., 9:548-49. For further details of the inquiry, including the tsar's questions to Pushkin about the poem during their meeting on 8 September 1826, see N. Eidel'man, Pushkin: Iz biografii i tvorchestva, 1826-1837 (Moscow, 1987), 37-41.

22. Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:424. The variants of this line, "Prizvan'iu svoemu o Muza,? bud' poslushna" and "Sviatomu zhrebiiu o Muza bud' poslushna" (3/2:1034), suggest that the phrase 'Velen'iu Bozhiiu" chosen in the final version of the poem carried a more dif- fuse general meaning, associated with the muse's sacred calling, than the religious and prophetic dimension ascribed to it by Pushkin's critics.

23. See, for example, Fridman, "Obraz poeta-proroka," 105-7, and, more recently, V S. Listov, "Mif ob 'ostrovnom prorochestve' v tvorcheskom soznanii Pushkina" (1980), in M. N. Virolainen, ed., Legendy i mify o Pushkine (St. Petersburg, 1999), 192-215. Listov



498 Slavic Review

These examples, although necessarily limited in scope, should suffice to indicate the grounds on which it is generally claimed that Pushkin identified the role of the poet with that of the prophet and embraced this ideal himself. At this point, however, it is necessary to introduce an im?

portant reservation. Critics who adopt this approach are guilty of making two unfounded assumptions, directly connected with the opening questions posed at the beginning of this section. It does not follow from Push? kin's composition of varied poems about the prophet and the poet that he

merged the two figures into a single composite ideal. Nor does his author-

ship of such verses imply that he subscribed to this ideal himself or achieved it in his own lifetime.

Although poems such as "Imitations ofthe Koran" or "Andre Chenier"

may invite certain parallels between the poet and the prophet, the suggestion of possible areas of analogy between the two figures should not be taken to imply their identity. On the contrary, a close examination of Push? kin's texts reveals that his exploration of many different manifestations of the poet and the prophet was undertaken in a spirit of wide-ranging in-

quiry, which tended to expose the inner inconsistencies and limitations of the enshrined image of the poet-prophet that had become a fairly standard poetic and rhetorical cliche in his day. This can be sensed in the ironic tone of his personal references to the image in his correspondence24?a dimension generally ignored by his readers, who present such comments as evidence of the poet's wholehearted espousal of the ideal of the poet as

prophet. It can also be sensed in his many poems on the subject, which are remarkable for their polyphonic diversity; attempts to designate any one of these voices as representative of Pushkin's own view on the matter are both reductive and distorting.

The assimilation of all these varied treatments of the poet and

prophet into the single composite figure of the poet-prophet, presented as Pushkin's own personal ideal, ignores a fundamental distinction. Push? kin was only too well aware of the very real differences between poet and

prophet and recognized that the source of this distinction lay in the moral dimension of the prophet's calling. This dimension, together with Push? kin's lucid awareness of the difficulty of achieving the required level of moral purification, meant that the poet?although he might utter pro? phetic words or even aspire to the prophetic ideal?could not achieve the status of a true prophet in the biblical sense of the term.

reads the poem as the culmination of a long line of works, in which Pushkin links his growing awareness of his prophetic calling to the figure of St. John the Apostle, the author of the prophetic Book of Revelation, composed on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9). At the outset of his article he presents his "unpolemical" view of the poem as "stikhi pro- rocheskie. Ikh moshchnye luchi pronikaiut daleko za chertu skoroi gibeli poeta, vysvechi- vaiut griadushchee, poka eshche sokrytoe ot pushkinskikh sovremennikov." Listov, "Mif ob 'ostrovnom prorochestve,'" 193.

24. See, for example, the tone of Pushkin's confident prediction to Pletnev that Gnedich would not die before finishing his translation of the Iliad; after paraphrasing a phrase from the psalms of the prophet David ("reku v serdtse svoem"), he added: "Ty znaesh', chto ia prorok." Letter to P. A. Pletnev of 3 March 1826, in Pushkin, Sobranie sochi? nenii, 9:214.




In this context it is hardly surprising that Pushkin's most important poetic statement on the calling of the prophet centers on the preliminary need for moral purification. "The Prophet" provides a remarkable

graphic description of the process of spiritual and moral cleansing that the true prophet must undergo: first his sinful tongue is ripped out and

replaced with the serpent's sting, then his heart is torn out and a burning coal is thrust into its place.25 This is probably the most celebrated account of the prophet's preparation for his mission in the whole of Russian liter?

ature; significantly, many of its details are closely modeled on the biblical

description of the process of purification that the prophet Isaiah under- went before receiving his divine message.26 Although some critics have

sought to relate the prophet described in the poem to the Koran, most

readers, from Pushkin's contemporaries onwards, have associated him with the prophet of Hebrew tradition, modeled on Isaiah.27 The importance of this source was clearly recognized from the outset: Mikhail Pogo- din, for example, the founding editor of the journal in which the poem was first published in 1828, referred to it in his diary simply as "Pushkin's verses from Isaiah."28

For the majority of readers, who understood Pushkin's prophet as a

figure of the poet, the clear implication was that the jfro^-prophet would (or should) experience a similar process of moral purification before com-

municating his message to the world. Pushkin's view of the poet's capacity for sustained moral and social commitment, however, was evidently somewhat different. In "Arion" (16 July 1827) he depicts the poet as a "mysteri- ous singer" (tainstvennyi pevets) who is "full of carefree faith" (bespechnoi very poln) and loyal only to the source of his inspiration; in this he stands

alone, set apart from his companions on board, who labor together in the

pursuit of common goals under the direction of their "wise helmsman"

(kormshchik umnyi).29 Such a figure has all the characteristics of the poet, but none of the prophet.

25. For the text ofthe poem and its publication history, see Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:30-31 (text), 3/1:578 (variants), 3/2:1130 (notes). The titie "Prorok" was not added by Pushkin until sometime between late April and August 1827.

26. Isaiah 6:6-7. 27. The first critic to argue in favor of the Koran as the main source of "Prorok" was

N. I. Cherniaev in Prorok 'Pushkina v sviazi s ego zhe Podrazhaniiami Koranu' (Moscow, 1898). See S. A. Fomichev, Poeziia Pushkina: Tvorcheskaia evoliutsiia (Leningrad, 1986), 176w26. Vladimir Solov'ev devoted much space to refuting Cherniaev's reading of "Prorok" in his third essay on Pushkin, "Znachenie poezii v stikhotvoreniiakh Pushkina" (1899). On the link between "Prorok" and Isaiah, see N. I. Mikhailova, "Vitiistva groznyi dar . . .": A. S. Pushkin i russkaia oratorskaia traditsiia ego vremeni (Moscow, 1999), 133-38. Mikhailova acknowledges the presence of motifs from the Koran but gives most attention to the biblical source.

28. In November 1827 M. P. Pogodin noted in his diary: "voskhishch[alsia] stikhami Pushkina iz Isaii." In January 1828 Pogodin recorded reading out to an assembled company a canto from Tasso, his own story "Suzhenyi," Pushkin's "Prorok," and the description of Moscow from Evgenii Onegin. "Prorok" was first published in Pogodin's journal Moskovskii vestnik, 1828, no. 3:269-70. See M. A. Tsiavlovskii, "Pushkin po dokumentam Pogodin- skogo arkhiva," in Pushkin i ego sovremenniki: Materialy i issledovaniia, no. 19-20 (Petrograd, 1914), 87-88.

29. Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:58.



500 Slavic Review

Although some aspects of Pushkin's work suggest the possibility of a

parallel between the prophet and the poet, there is a fundamental difference between the two figures, which hinges on the issue of moral purity and social commitment. This crucial area of difFerence lies at the heart of an intriguing poem Pushkin addressed to Nikolai Gnedich, the talented translator of the Iliad. In "S Gomerom dolgo ty besedoval odin ..." (With Homer you conversed at length alone . . . , 23 April-early May 1832), Gnedich is represented as a Moses-like figure, who descends from the

heights (where he has been engaged in a long discourse with Homer) in order to bring down his "tables" (the completed translation of the Iliad) to the people.30 The parallel between Gnedich and the prophet was in- troduced even more forcefully in an earlier variant of the poem's opening line: "Prorok! Na vysotakh beseduia s Gomerom . . ." (Prophet! Convers-

ing on the heights with Homer ...) .31 At this stage the parallel rests on the

lofty source of both figures' creative inspiration. After this point, however, the analogy breaks down and the essential difFerence between the poet and the biblical prophet becomes manifest. When the "prophet" comes down to the people, he finds them cavorting around an idol. This prompts the following rhetorical question and answer:

Tbi npoKmn jih, npopoK, 6eccMbicjieHHbix aeTen, Pa36HJI JIH Tbi CBOH CKpH5KaJIH? O, Tbi He npOKJMJI HaC. Tbi JIK)6HUIb C BblCOTbl

QcpblBaTbCfl B TeHb AOJIHHbl MaJIOH, Tbi jiio6HiHb rpoM He6ec, ho Taicace BHeMJienib tm

>Ky?c?caHbK) nneji HaA po30H ajion. TaKOB np^MOH noaT.

(Did you curse, prophet, the senseless children, Did you break your tables? Oh, you did not curse us. You love from the heights To hide in the shadow of the little valley, You love the thunder of the heavens, but you also listen To the bees buzzing over the scarlet rose. Such is the true poet.)

These lines are highly significant for our subject, as they contain the only instance in Pushkin's verse where the key words prophet and poet are juxta- posed in order to highlight their differences: Pushkin invokes the analogy between poet and prophet only in order to dismantle it. Rather than re-

buking the "senseless children" for their moral inconstancy and shattering the tables (as Moses did after the episode of the golden calf), the poet prefers instead to take refuge in the lower regions, for, unlike the biblical

prophet, who is bound by his allegiance to the lofty perspective of divine

judgment, he enjoys complete freedom to roam eclectically from the

"high" writers of classical antiquity to the "low" figures of popular Russian folklore. It is interesting to note that Pushkin identifies the prophet's tran-

30. Ibid., 3/1:286 (text), 3/2:885-90 (variants), 3/2:1237 (notes). The poem was not published until after Pushkin's death; lines 1-16 first appeared as "K N**" in Zhukovskii's edition of 1841.

31. Ibid., 3/2:885.




scendent moral perspective with the act of cursing (described in the past tense), whereas the poet's immanent merging with the lower world is represented as a continuing act of love (described in the present tense): both

verbs, "you cursed" (proklial) and "you love" (liubisti) are repeated twice for emphasis. Further suggestive differences between the two figures are revealed in variants of the poem: unlike the prophet, the poet is com-

pared to a child, he serves many gods, not just one, and, like the poet de? scribed in "Ekho" (Echo, 1831), his function is to respond to the natural world.32

Pushkin's verses were written in response to an earlier poem addressed to him by Gnedich, which opens with the arresting apostrophe, "Pushkin, Protei" (Pushkin, Proteus).33 Gnedich justified his characterization of Pushkin as a Proteus on the basis of his supple language and the magic of his songs; his admiration for Pushkin's experiments in the genre of the folkloric fairy tale led him to counsel the poet to avoid imitating foreign writers and to concentrate instead on developing the quintessentially Rus? sian features of his verse. Although the sea deity Proteus possessed the

knowledge of futurity, he was an unwilling and elusive prophet who would assume all manner of different guises to escape the necessity of prophesying. In a sense, therefore, Pushkin was returning Gnedich's compliment by pointing out that any "prophetic" qualities that Gnedich might possess were similarly subject to the protean qualities of the true poet.34

In Pushkin's view, the artist's paramount need for creative freedom was not easily compatible with the rigorous moral discipline required by the

prophetic calling. This did not mean that the artist had no concern with moral values; it simply meant that his main priorities and guiding motiva- tion were different. In fact, Pushkin's ability to draw a firm line of demar- cation between the prophetic and the creative spirits allowed him to pre- serve the innate character of each in a purer, more pristine form than other writers, whose attempts to merge them into a single, composite ideal

generally led to a dilution or distortion of the moral aspect of the pro? phetic ideal.

32. On the poet as child, see the variant phrases from "S Gomerom ...": "Kak rezvoe ditia" (ibid., 3/2:888), "I s detskoi radost'iu," "I s detskoi veroiu" (3/2:889); these recall the lines from "Poet" (15 August 1827): "I mezh detei nichtozhnykh mira, / Byt' mozhet, vsekh nichtozhnei on" (3/1:65). On the poet's pantheism, see the phrase "On vkhodit v dom bogov" (3/2:888). On his role as echo of the natural world, see "Ty vtori[sh'] ekhu gor" (3/2:887). The parallels between Pushkin's address to Gnedich and his earlier poem "Ekho" (1831) include textual reminiscences of lines from "Ekho" such as "Ty vnemlesh' grokhotu gromov" or "Takov / I ty, poet!" (3/1:276) and confirm the fact that Pushkin's poem to Gnedich, while containing numerous features specific to the addressee, also func- tions on a more general level, dealing with the poet and prophet as archetypal figures.

33. N. I. Gnedich, "A. S. Pushkinu, po prochtenii skazki ego o tsare Saltane i proch" (23 April 1832), in his Stikhotvoreniia, ed. I. N. Medvedeva, Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia (Leningrad, 1956), 148.

34. On the significance of Proteus in Russian verse of the 1830s as an image of "uni? versal genius," applied to Pushkin and Goethe, see Boris Gasparov, "Tridtsatye gody? zheleznyi vek (k analizu motivov stoletnogo vozvrashcheniia u Mandel'shtama)," in Boris Gasparov, Robert P. Hughes, and Irina Paperno, eds., Cultural Mythologies of Russian Mod- ernism: From the Golden Age to the Silver Age (Berkeley, 1992), 168-69.



502 Slavic Review

It was precisely Pushkin's awareness of the importance of the moral

aspect of prophecy that prevented him from glibly assuming this role in his own life or verse. Although, as we have seen, he occasionally included

lighthearted references to himself as a prophet in private letters to

friends, these humorous asides were undertaken in a facetious spirit, which ultimately, as in the poem to Gnedich, served more to underline the fundamental differences between the poet and the prophet than to

point out any deep similarity. Pushkin was evidently too conscious of the

reality of his own moral deficiencies to be able to overlook them, particularly during the last years of his life when this awareness deepened. From about 1830 onwards, his verse reflects a growing sense of dissatisfaction with his wasted past, compounded by obscure feelings of anxiety and

discouragement over his ability to change in the future. The somber mood of "Elegiia" (Elegy, 8 September 1830; "Bezumnykh let ugasshee vesel'e ..." [The spent gaiety of demented years . . .]) is still tinged with

hope, but a more acute sense of existential anguish takes precedence in

"Stikhi, sochinennye noch'iu vo vremia bessonitsy" (Verses, composed at

night during insomnia, October 1830), where the poet is kept awake by the insistent "murmur" of his "wasted day" (ropot / Mnoi utrachennogo dnia)35 but cannot decipher what this prophesies for his future. The associated longing for a spiritual guide, who might lead the way out of this dark state, is manifest in a number of poems with clear autobiographical overtones. "V chasy zabav il' prazdnoi skuki ..." (At times of fun or idle boredom . . . , 19 January 1830) evokes the "majestic voice" (golos velichavyi) and "ambrosial speeches" (rechei blagoukhannykh) of Metropoli- tan Filaret,36 while the unfinished Dantesque fragment in terza rima, "V nachale zhizni shkolu pomniu ia . . ." (At the beginning of my life I remember a school . . . , October 1830), conjures up a more allegorical figure in the form of "stately woman" (velichavaia zhena), who used to ad? dress the poet in a "sweet voice" (sladkim golosom) with "words full of holi- ness" (polnye sviatyni slovesa) .37

In "Ottsy pustynniki i zheny neporochny ..." (Hermit fathers and immaculate women . . . , 22 July 1836) the poet writes of the spiritual com-

35. Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:250. 36. Ibid., 3/1:212. Pushkin was responding to a poem that Metropolitan Filaret

had composed for him to counter the unrelieved pessimism of his earlier poem, "Dar

naprasnyi, dar sluchainyi . . . ," written on his birthday (26 May 1828). Metropolitan Filaret's poem, "Ne naprasno, ne sluchaino . . . ," was east in the form of a first-person prayer, addressed by Pushkin to God, and exacdy reproduced the form of Pushkin's poem (including its stanzaic structure, meter, and rhymes). It was first published anonymously in 1840; for the text and details, see N. V Gogol', Sobranie sochinenii, comp. and ed. V. A.

Voropaev and I. A. Vinogradov, 9 vols. (Moscow, 1994), 6:434. Pushkin was delighted with the poem; in a letter to E. M. Khitrovo of January 1830 he exclaimed: "Des vers d'un chre- tien, d'un eveque russe en reponse a des couplets sceptiques! e'est vraiment une bonne fortune." Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii, 9:285-86.

37. Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:254. On autobiographical elements in this poem and their relation to Dante's spiritual journey, see Pamela Davidson, "Divine Service or Idol Worship: Russian Views of Art as Demonic," in Pamela Davidson, ed., Russian Literature and Its Demons (New York, 2000), 148-54.




fort and support that he finds in reciting the words of a Lenten prayer for moral purification. Al though this work is often cited as evidence of Pushkin's attainment of a new level of religious feeling,38 the manner of its construction (the second half consists of a poetic paraphrase of the text of the prayer)39 suggests a deeper message: the poet can only imagine what it might be like to experience a sense of moral purification vicari-

ously, by submerging his own poetic voice in the borrowed language of the

liturgy. This is not Pushkin the man becoming a saintly figure, but Pushkin the poet trying out or assuming a different voice.40

Pushkin was too complex and too honest a poet to suggest that the

goal of moral purity either was within easy reach or could simply be by- passed. A vivid fragment, composed in June-July 1836, just a few months before his death, reveals with disarming frankness the way in which the

lyric subject's attempts to scale the prophetic heights of Zion are con-

stantly undermined and thwarted by the appetite for sin, which stalks him like a hungry beast:

HanpacHO a 6ery k chohckhm BbicoTaM, Tpex ajiHHbiH roHHTca 3a mhoio no mrraM ... TaK, H03APH nbiJibHbie yTKHyB b necoK cbinyHHH, TojioAHbiH jieB cjieOTT ojieHfl 6er naxynHH.

(In vain I run to the heights of Zion, Greedy sin pursues me on my heels . . . Thus, after burying its dusty nostrils into the shifting sand, The hungry lion tracks the strong-smelling run of the deer.)41

38. This is, for example, the opinion of G. A. Lesskis, Religiia i nravstvennost' v tvorchestve pozdnego Pushkina (Moscow, 1992), 143: "Drevnii religioznyi stikh, poluchivshii v vekakh znachenie khristianskoi molitvy, v perelozhenii Pushkina stanovitsia vmeste s tem vyrazheniem ego lichnostnogo dukhovnogo soznaniia" (my emphasis).

39. Pushkin adapted the text of a Lenten prayer composed by the biblical exegete and ecclesiastical writer St. Ephraem of Syria (303-73), rendered into Slavonic as "Gospodi i Vladyko zhivota moego . . ." Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii, 2:613. His poem was first published by Zhukovskii in 1837 under the title "Molitva." Pushkin, PSS, 3/2:1270. Ephraem's writings were mostly in verse; he was famous for his liturgical poetry and cycles of hymns. Although his inspiration was scriptural, his style was literary, marked by extensive use of repetition and saturated with metaphors. These literary qualities may have at- tracted Pushkin to his prayer.

40. In this respect I do not entirely agree with Sergej Davydov's interpretation of this poem as presented in his "Puskin's Easter Triptych: 'Hermit Fathers and Immaculate Women,' Tmitation ofthe Italian,' and 'Secular Power,'" in David Bethea, ed., Puskin To- day (Bloomington, 1993), 38-45. Davydov reads the poem in an autobiographical light as evidence of Pushkin's spiritual growth in later years; on the basis of the "progression from impersonal to personal mode, revealed on the pronominal level," he argues that "the prayer becomes internalized, the 'alien word' becomes one's own" (43). While concurring with the view that the poem reflects Pushkin's increasing awareness of the problem of moral purification, I do not accept the incorporation of the text of the prayer into Push? kin's poem as evidence that Pushkin had achieved a similar level of religious and moral feeling in his own life.

41. Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:419. The unusual adjective sionskii (of which this is the only instance in Pushkin's verse) carries clear biblical and prophetic connotations; see also the reference to "Sion" in Pushkin's sonnet "Madona," 8 July 1830 (3/1:224).



504 Slavic Review

As in "At the beginning of my life I remember a school. . .," Pushkin's allusions to Dante's spiritual journey serve to underline a stark contrast: for his poetic persona, there is no escape from the dark wood of sin.42

It is a considerable irony of literary history that the very writer whose works reflect such a lucid understanding of the moral basis for the distinction between poet and prophet should have come to be regarded as the prototype of the poet-prophet and as the founder of this view of the writer in the Russian literary tradition. Pushkin would undoubtedly have resisted the attempts made by subsequent generations to build him up into a prophetic figure. The reception of Russian literature by its own na- tive readers is a powerful force to be reckoned with, however, and has acted as a great leveler as far as shaping a unified tradition of poetry as

prophecy has been concerned.

GogoV's Approach to Pushkin as Moral Prophet: The Context ofFaith

One of the first Russian writers to confront the problem of Pushkin's moral credentials for the role of prophet was Gogol'. Clearly an essential

part of his general claim that Russian literature was uniquely prophetic in spirit involved demonstrating that its poets were potential successors to the Hebrew prophets, filled with the "spiritual nobility" (dukhovnoe

blagorodstvo) that he regarded as the true hallmark of Russian writers.43 This claim surfaces at regular intervals throughout his Vybrannye mesta iz

perepiski s druz'iami (Selected passages from correspondence with friends,

1847) and forms the context to the lengthy digression on Pushkin's moral

standing inserted into the section of this work devoted to the potential of the theater as a vehicle for moral instruction.44 Certain critics had recently accused Pushkin of being a deist, rather than a true Christian, whose works

42. In Inferno 1, when Dante attempts to leave the dark wood in which he was lost (11. 2-3), he reaches the foot of a hill (1. 13) and looks up toward the sun. He then takes

up his way across "the desert strand" (lapiaggia diserta, 1. 29), but his progress is impeded by three animals: a spotted leopard, a "lion that appeared to me and seemed to be com-

ing at me, head high and raging with hunger, so that the air seemed to tremble at it" (11. 45-48), and a wolf. As a result Dante "lost hope of the height" (1. 54); he is pushed back to where the sun is silent and would not have succeeded in escaping, had he not been rescued by Virgil, who appears to him "in that vast desert" (nelgran diserto, 1. 64). Pushkin has borrowed from Dante the challenge of the heights to be ascended, the threat of the

hungry lion, and the image of the sandy desert (the "pesok" of the fragment echoes Dante's "piaggia"; the word pustynia, which occurs in the variants, echoes Dante's "gran diserto").

43. "O lirizme nashikh poetov" (1846), in Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druz'iami, in

GogoY,PSS, 8:261. 44. In "Predmety dlia liricheskogo poeta v nyneshnee vremia" (1844), Gogol' assures

the poet N. M. Iazykov that his words will fly forth like fire, "kak ot drevnikh prorokov" (PSS, 8:281), if he models his behavior on that of the prophets and embraces his literary calling with the same spirit of dedication. In "O lirizme nashikh poetov" (1846), he argues that Russian poetry possesses a unique, biblical, and prophetic spirit, because Russia, unlike France, England, and Germany, is strongly aware of the hand of God in her history (PSS, 8:249, 251). On the potential of the theater, see "O teatre, ob odnostoronnem vzgliade na teatr i voobshche ob odnostoronnosti" (1845), PSS, 8:267-77; for the digression on Pushkin, see 8:274-77.




were immoral and corrupting.45 This prompted Gogol' to launch a vigorous counterattack in his defense. Have these critics been inside Pushkin's soul? Was Pushkin under any obligation to reflect the tenets of the Chris- tian faith in his verse? Is it even appropriate to dress up the lofty truths of

Christianity in rhymes and to turn them into "poetic toys"?46 Finally (and most cuttingly), are such allegations not fundamentally anti-Christian in

spirit? Are these critics sufficiently Christian in their own lives to be able to make such judgments with any moral authority?

As these comments reveal, Gogol"s technique for repudiating Push? kin's detractors was not to answer their accusations directly but rather to discredit them by redefining the function and qualifications of the true critic. Since "all poetry is a mystery" and full of ambiguities,47 only a poet can judge another poet; the ideal critic must therefore be a creative writer as well as a Christian (a job for which Gogol' evidently felt well qualified). Such a critic would do well to concentrate on unambiguous texts from Pushkin's mature work. As evidence of Pushkin's "poetic clairvoyance" (poeticheskogo iasnovideniia), Gogol' particularly recommends his tribute to the spiritual guidance offered to him over the years by his mentor, Met-

ropolitan Filaret, "At times of fun or idle boredom . . ,"48 This poem was a particular favorite of Gogol"s; elsewhere he cites it alongside "The

Prophet" as evidence of the unique biblical and prophetic qualities of Russian verse, reflected in Pushkin's work.49

The most revealing part of Gogol"s defense of Pushkin comes toward the end of his digression, when he asks what is the point of "confusing people by planting in them doubt and suspicion of Pushkin."50 Critics, whose task is to spread faith, not "lack of faith," have a key role to play in

reinforcing the people's faith in Pushkin, who is "by far the cleverest man of his time" and widely regarded by educated people "as a leader" at the forefront of society.51 Gogol' clearly translated his faith in the principle of the poet as prophet into faith in Pushkin as a sacred figure; the critic's role in safeguarding the purity of this faith therefore becomes somewhat akin to the role ofa later prophet in the same chain, who watches over the pu? rity of its transmission. Significantly, Gogol' concludes his essay by draw-

45. The main critic was S. A. Burachok, whose article "Videnie v tsarstve dukhov" was published in 1840 in hisjournal Maiak; Burachok accused Pushkin of lack of faith and im- morality. Burachok and another contributor, A. M. Martynov, subsequently wrote further articles in this vein, published in Maiak in 1843-45. Gogol' referred to Burachok's views as one ofthe sources of his article on the theater in his letter of 9 May 1846 to the priest Matfei Konstantinovskii, who had raised strong objections to Gogol"s defense of the the? ater; see Gogol', Sobranie sochinenii, 6:441-42.

46. Gogol', PSS, 8:275. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., 8:276. 49. "O lirizme nashikh poetov," ibid., 8:249. Gogol' probably saw Metropolitan Fila-

ret's poem (to which Pushkin was responding) in Burachok's article of 1840 in Maiak, where the poem was first published anonymously. In March 1845 Gogol' wrote from Frank- furt to a friend in Paris, asking him to obtain a copy of Filaret's poem to Pushkin for him; see Gogol', Sobranie sochinenii, 6:434.

50. Gogol', PSS, 8:276. 51. Ibid., 8:277, 276.



506 Slavic Review

ing a comparison between present-day Russian writers and one of the

early Hebrew prophets: just as King David took up the musical instru- ments of pagan idolators to worship the true God, so Gogol' and his fel-

low writers are "called into this world, not to devastate and destroy, but, like God Himself, to direct everything toward the good."52

Reduced to its bare bones, Gogol"s line of argument can be para- phrased as follows: Russian writers are prophets, distinguished for their moral purity, therefore Pushkin must be a prophetic figure with impeccable morals. We may note that Gogol' does not ask any open-ended questions about Pushkin's moral credentials for the role of prophet. Instead, he starts from his desired conclusion and works backwards to present his case as an article of faith, rather than as a piece of argued evidence. In view of this approach, we can perhaps understand more clearly why

Gogol"s spiritual mentor, Father Matfei Konstantinovskii, who had raised

strong objections to Gogol"s essay on the theater, insisted at one of their

last interviews that his disciple should "repudiate Pushkin," "a sinner and a pagan," as an act of moral purification "to prepare him for an honorable

Christian death."53 The fact that Gogol' allowed his faith in the notion of

the poet as prophet to determine his judgment of Pushkin's moral cre?

dentials set an important precedent; subsequent writers, who developed various literary strategies to flesh out Pushkin's moral profile, were fol-

lowing Gogol"s lead in taking as their starting point the view of Pushkin

the poet-prophet, embraced as an article of faith.

Literary Strategies for Reading Pushkin as Moral Prophet

Pushkin's resistance to a "moral" reading, both on the personal, biographical level and through the prism of his texts, was a major obstacle con-

fronting those who wished to present him as a prophetic figure. In nego-

tiating this stumbling block, many readers and writers felt compelled to

refashion the poet's image in the light of the moral requirements of the

prophetic ideal. This led to the development of a range of literary strate?

gies, which were designed, whether consciously or unconsciously, to en-

hance the writer's moral standing. On a simple level, such strategies might

typically involve considering only a very limited number of Pushkin's

works, or distorting their meaning to fit a preconceived, idealized view of

the poet. These tendencies are already evident in Gogol"s approach to

Pushkin, which draws on a restricted number of works, sometimes sub-

jected to one-sided or forced interpretations. A ludicrous example oc-

curs in Gogol"s reading of Pushkin's poem to Gnedich as an address to

Nicholas I (compared to the prophet Moses), allegedly offering conclu-

sive "proof" of the poet's deep love and reverence for the tsar.54 In addi-

52. Ibid., 8:277. In the original 1847 edition ofVybrannye mesta, the words "podobno samomu Bogu" were cut by the censor (not surprisingly, as they suggest a comparison be? tween writers, including Gogol', and God).

53. From the memoir of Father F. I. Obraztsov, a colleague and long-time friend of Father Matfei's, cited in Simon Karlinsky, The Sexual Labyrinth ofNikolai Gogol (Chicago, 1976), 274.

54. "S Gomerom dolgo ty besedoval odin ..." was first published under the title "To N**"; see "O lirizme nashikh poetov," in Gogol', PSS, 8:253-54 (text), 791 (notes). Most




tion to this general approach, more specific strategies were widely adopted in relation to Pushkin and subsequently extended to other writers. This section will examine three of these strategies, which all depended on a certain blurring of the boundary between life and art?a technique that enabled the moral credentials of the writer-prophet to be established in both spheres with greater fluidity and ease.

Artistic Integrity as a Moral Value. The first, most general strategy for

strengthening the moral profile of the writer involved substituting the notion of poetic or artistic integrity for the principle of moral integrity. If the

poetic word is seen as sacred, then its correct use becomes a moral im-

perative rather than an aesthetic act. This idea was first put forward in a literary context by Gogol', who, significantly, took Pushkin as his point of departure. In a section of Selected Passages entitled "O tom, chto takoe slovo" (On the nature of the word, 1844), Gogol' begins by citing a state? ment that he attributes to Pushkin's disagreement with Derzhavin: "the words of a poet are already his deeds" (slova poeta sut' uzhe ego dela) .55

Later in the essay Gogol' explains why this should be the case: "The word must be treated honestly. It is the highest gift of God to man."56

Gogol' takes his view of the sacred origins and purpose of language di-

rectly from the Bible. He quotes from the verse in St. Paul's Epistle to the

Ephesians, which warns against misusing language designed to spread the faith: "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers."57

of this passage was cut by the censor from the original edition of 1847 and was not pub? lished until F. V Chizhov's edition of 1867. Gogol"s misreading of Pushkin's poem is all the more surprising as Belinskii had already identified the addressee of the poem as Gnedich in his "Sochineniia Aleksandra Pushkina: Stat'ia tret'ia," Otechestvennye zapiski 30, no. 10, section 5 (1843): 81-82; reprinted in Belinskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 7:255-56. In a letter of 30January 1847 to Gogol', S. P. Shevyrev expressed astonishment at Gogol"s mis? reading of Pushkin's poem. In his reply of 27 April 1847, Gogol' defended his monarchist reading of the poem and enclosed a separate sheet with the passage that had been cut. Gogol', PSS, 13:290-91. On this sheet Gogol' added a (highly confusing!) note to the effect that he had spread the original "rumor" about the poem being addressed to Gnedich, a report that had then been picked up by Otechestvennye zapiski; see Gogol', Sobranie sochine? nii, 6:435-36.

55. Gogol', PSS, 8:229. According to Gogol', Pushkin spoke these words after read? ing the closing lines of Derzhavin's poem to A. V Khrapovitskii, "Khrapovitskomu" ("Khrapovitskii! druzhby znaki . . . ," written 30 March 1797, first published 1808): "Za slova?menia pust' glozhet, / Za dela?satirik chtit." G. R. Derzhavin, Stikhotvoreniia, comp. and ed. A. Ia. Kucherov (Moscow, 1958), 173-74. Editions of Gogol' give no source for the statement attributed to Pushkin, which I have not been able to trace in his pub? lished works; it seems likely that Gogol' is citing Pushkin from memory, possibly recalling a conversation with him. It is, of course, entirely possible that Gogol' adapted or even in- vented Pushkin's words to suit his purposes; what matters from our point of view is that he wished to present Pushkin in this light.

56. Gogol', PSS, 8:231. 57. Ephesians 4:29. Gogol' only cited the opening words of this verse: "Slovo gnilo da

ne iskhodit iz ust vashikh!" Gogol', PSS, 8:232. The same biblical verse is quoted in the fragment entitled "O slove" (from "Raznye izrecheniia iz Ioanna Zlatousta," based on his commentary on Psalm 140). Gogol' included this fragment in his "Vybrannye mesta iz tvorenii sv. ottsov i uchitelei tserkvi," a compilation of passages that he copied out in 1843



508 Slavic Review

Any writer who ignores this warning and misuses the word will be re-

proached by future generations for having betrayed his "divine calling" and the "honesty of his mission."58 For it is not the "godless" (bezbozhniki) who have brought most evil into the world, but the "hypocritical or even

simply unprepared preachers of God, who have dared to pronounce His

name with undedicated lips."59 These words suggest a contrast with the

prophet Moses, who remained reluctant to speak with "uncircumcised

lips" despite God's assurance that it is He who makes man's mouth.60 In

Gogol"s view, poets and prophets are part of a single tradition, for they share the same sacred language and a common responsibility toward its

correct use. If an author is not on the right spiritual level, he should

forego the temptation to "show off with the word" (poshchegoliat' slovom) and refrain altogether from writing. For those who possess the "gift of the

word," the voluntary adoption of a "long silence" provides an important

purifying discipline, in much the same way as a period of abstinence can

serve to regulate the appetites of the body.61 Gogol"s invocation of Pushkin's name at the very start of his essay im-

plies that he regarded Pushkin as a writer whose use of language was in

keeping with these high criteria (unlike Derzhavin, whom Gogol' criticizes

quite harshly for inconsistency in this respect). If the poet's words are to

be regarded as his deeds, then the way a writer uses language becomes the

touchstone of his moral integrity.

Literary Texts Read as Evidence of Moral Values in Life. The attribution

of moral value to words lends them the full weight and credit of deeds, a

significant shift that paves the way for the second main strategy to be con-

sidered. This consists in treating an author's works as evidence of his be-

havior and beliefs in real life; a writer's literary and fictional description of

moral purification thereby ends up being read and accounted to him as

an element of his own personal biography. This approach involves a com-

plex two-way process, which, like the first method, depends on clouding the distinction between life and art.

In the case of Pushkin, the most important source text for establish-

ing the poet's moral credentials was "The Prophet"; when read in a bio-

graphical light, this work prepared the ground for the subsequent confla-

tion of its author's image with that of the prophet described in the poem.

Support for such a reading can be found in the memoirs of Pushkin's con-

temporaries. According to most authorities, "The Prophet" was composed in exile at Mikhailovskoe between 24 July 1826 (when Pushkin first heard

from various sources, including Khristianskoe chtenie. See Gogol', Sobranie sochinenii, 8:512- 13 (text), 835-37 and 843-44 (notes). The fragment is linked to the views on language expressed in "O tom, chto takoe slovo" and casts further light on GogoF's attempt to relate the use of language in literature to sacred sources, reaching back through patristic tradi? tion to the Bible.

58. Gogol', PSS, 8:230. 59. Ibid., 8:231. 60. Exodus 6:12, 30 and 4:11. 61. Gogol', PSS, 8:232. The tradition of deliberately cultivating a period of literary si-

lence as a moral discipline continued to manifest itself in the works of numerous writers after Gogol'; prominent examples include Lev Tolstoi and Viacheslav Ivanov.




of the execution of the five Decembrists) and 3 September 1826 (when the poet was unexpectedly summoned to Moscow for his celebrated private interview with the tsar) .62 Other sources, however, suggest a slightly later date; according to Pogodin, the poem was written during the journey to Moscow and originally formed part of a cycle of four poems. The three remaining poems were evidently either lost or destroyed.63 Although some regard the following fragment as an earlier, alternative ending to the text of "The Prophet," it seems more likely that it belonged to one of the other poems of this cycle:64

BoccTaHb, BOCCTaHb, npopoK Pocchh, B no3opHbi pH3bI o6jieKHCb, H/jh, h c BepBHeM Ha bwh K y. <6irihje ?> <rHycHOMy ?> ABHCb.

(Arise, arise, prophet of Russia, In shameful vestments clothe yourself, Go, and with a rope around your neck

Appear before the [vile ?] m.[urderer ?].)

Some versions of the last line have "before the tsar" (k tsariu) instead of "before the m.<urderer>" (k u.<biitse>).65 According to certain re-

ports, Pushkin took along a version of "The Prophet" ending with this

fragment to his meeting with the tsar as a "poetic weapon," which he in- tended to present to the tsar if their conversation ended badly.66

62. M. A. Tsiavlovskii, Letopis' zhizni i tvorchestva A. S. Pushkina (Moscow, 1951), 1:717- 19, 725-26. These dates are also given in most authoritative editions of Pushkin; see, for example, Pushkin, PSS, 3/2:1130.

63. On 29 March 1837, M. P. Pogodin responded to an inquiry from P. A. Viazemskii about the location of "Prorok" and various other works by Pushkin: "Prorok on napisal, ekhavshi v Moskvu v 1826 godu. Dolzhny byt' chetyre stikhotv., pervoe tol'ko napechatano (Dukhovnoi zhazhdoiu tomim etc.)"; M. Tsiavlovskii, "Zametki o Pushkine," in Zven'ia: Sborniki materialov i dokumentov po istorii literatury, iskusstva i obshchestvennoi mysli XIX veka, ed. Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich (Moscow-Leningrad, 1936), 153 (text), 155 (notes). For an account of Pushkin hurriedly burning some notes and poems in the stove when told of the unexpected arrival of the messenger who had come to fetch him, see the record of P. I. Bartenev's conversations with P. V Nashchokin, in M. Tsiavlovskii, ed., Rasskazy o Pushkine, zapisannye so slov ego druzeiP. I. Bartenevym v 1851-1860 godakh (Leningrad, 1925), 34. The poems included one described as "stikhotvorenie Prorok, gde predskazyvalis' sovershiv- shiesia uzhe sobytiia 14 dekabria"; from this description of its contents, it cannot have been the same as the published "Prorok."

64. In Bartenev's record of his conversations with P. V. and V. A. Nashchokin, the fragment is headed "Okonchanie Proroka" and followed by the comment "ot Pogodina, tozhe soobshchil i Khomiakov." Ibid., 31. Its portrayal of a cowed, submissive "prophet of Rus- sia" bears only a parodic relation to the universal, biblical prophet described in "Prorok."

65. Pushkin, PSS, 3/1:461 (text), 3/2:1055 (variants), 3/2:1282 (notes). The fragment was in circulation for many years but remained unpublished until 1880.

66. From the recollections of A.V. Venevitinov (first published by A. P. Piatkovskii in 1880), cited in Tsiavlovskii, ed., Rasskazy oPushkine, 93. This report would seem to tally with Iu. Strutyn'skii's reference to an epigram in his account of Pushkin's reaction to his dis- covery upon arriving in Moscow that he was being summoned for an audience with the tsar: "dusha moia vdrug omrachilas',?ne trevogoiu, net!?no chem-to pokhozhim na nenavist', zlobu, otvrashchenie. Mozg oshchetinilsia epigrammoi, na gubakh igrala nasmeshka, serdtse vzdrognulo ot chego-to pokhozhego na golos svyshe ..." Cited in G. I.



510 Slavic Review

Although these accounts exhibit a confusing range of contradictory details, they all have one purpose in common:67 the desire to represent Pushkin not merely as the author of a text about the figure ofthe prophet, but as a prophet in his own right, with a message to communicate to the leader of his people. The effect ofthe fragment, taken in conjunction with the multiple rumors that surrounded it, was to link the impersonal and universal image of the prophet described in "The Prophet" to the figure of Pushkin, whose meeting with the newly crowned tsar in the Kremlin

thereby acquired the character of a confrontation between prophet and

ruler, modeled on biblical tradition.68 The mechanism at work here is

simple, even naive, and perhaps for this very reason quite compelling. In

just a few steps, the reader is taken from a text about the prophet to the notion of its author as a prophet; what is most remarkable about this pro? cess is that Pushkin's prophetic and moral status is derived from a literary text of his own making, rather than being validated by the example of his life or by any higher, external source.

Martyrdom and Death as Moral Categories. The third main strategy for

bolstering the moral credentials of the writer involved exaggerating any elements of suffering in his biography and representing these as a form of

cleansing martyrdom. These elements could, of course, be "borrowed" from the writer's fictional works and read into his life, following the second strategy outlined above. Although suffering is primarily an attribute ofthe saintly martyr rather than ofthe prophet, and does not in itself nec-

essarily derive from or lead to superior moral qualities, the prevalence of the figure of the saintly martyr in the Russian literary tradition, together with its close association with the image of the prophet, facilitated this transfer.69

In Pushkin's case, this led to the development ofthe myth ofthe pure poet, subject to unjust suffering throughout his life and hounded to a

premature death by various tormentors, including the tsar, the censor, D'Anthes, and the collective bogeymen of society. This myth was largely constructed after Pushkin's death, an event that became the starting point and centerpiece of the poet's new posthumous vita (an interesting phe? nomenon that can be considered in the light of Mikhail Bakhtin's com-

Doldobanov, comp., Khronika zhizni i tvorchestva A. S. Pushkina, ed. V S. Nepomniashchii, 3 vols. (Moscow, 2000), 1:13.

67. For a review of conflicting accounts (mosdy published between 1866 and 1880) of the origins of "Prorok" and its relation to the fragment, see the notes in Tsiavlovskii, ed., Rasskazy o Pushkine, 91-94.

68. For detailed accounts of Pushkin's meeting with the tsar, see Eidel'man, Pushkin: Iz biografii i tvorchestva, 32-41, and Doldobanov, comp., Khronika zhizni i tvorchestva A. S. Pushkina, 1:13-19.

69. The cult of martyrdom or suffering as a value in itself plays a central role in the Christian tradition and is particularly emphasized in Russian Orthodoxy; it is much less

prominent in Judaism. The tests and trials to which the Hebrew prophets were subjected were designed to refine their faith and trust in God and obedience to the divine will but did not in themselves make the prophets any holier. On literary representations of saintly martyrs, see Margaret Ziolkowski, Hagiography and Modern Russian Literature (Princeton, 1988). Al though Ziolkowski does not examine the figure of the prophet, many of her comments on saintly martyrs in literature are also applicable to the treatment of the prophet.




ments on death as a "form of aesthetic completion of the individual" and

point of departure for an evaluation of his life through memory) .70 At the start of this tradition comes Lermontov's poem "Smert' poeta" (The death of a poet, 29 January-early February 1837), which opens with the lament "A poet has perished" (Pogibpoet!) and, after developing the theme ofthe

poet's martyrdom through the image of the "crown of thorns" (venets ter-

novyi), closes with a defiant reference to the impossibility of washing away "the poet's righteous blood" (poetapravednuiu krovf).n The poet's death is

accordingly represented as a spiritual rather than a physical event, as the ultimate act of martyrdom in the life of a righteous man who was de-

stroyed by a corrupt society. Although Pushkin is presented in "The Death of a Poet" as a martyred

victim rather than as a prophet, this poem in many ways prepares the

ground for Lermontov's own assumption of the prophetic role. In the final section of the poem (lines 57-72) the poet launches a powerful in- vective against the "confidants of corruption" (napersniki razvrata), upon whom he invokes "divine judgment" (Bozhii sud); the elevated rhetorical diction adopted at this point is prophetic in tone and quite distinct from the earlier elegiac voice. Furthermore, by drawing attention to the simi-

larity between Pushkin's death at a duel and his fictional account of Len- skii's death in Evgenii Onegin (lines 34-38), Lermontov indirectly intro- duces the theme of a writer prophesying his own death in his work.

Significantly, this was the basis on which he then proceeded to establish his own prophetic image. In "Ne smeisia nad moei prorocheskoi toskoiu ..." (Do not laugh at my prophetic sorrow..., 1837), written soon after "The Death of a Poet," the poet describes himself wearing the "crown of thorns" (venets ternovyi) previously attributed to Pushkin and then goes on to prophesy his own death?a theme that he develops in a number of other poems.72 In "Poet" (The poet, 1838) he presents the "mocked

prophet" (osmeiannyi prorok) as a universal prototype of the poet,73 and

subsequently takes up this image directly in "Prorok" (The prophet, 1841), written in the first person as his personal rejoinder to Pushkin's

original poem on this subject. We can see, therefore, how Lermontov's presentation of Pushkin's

death as a martyred victim paved the way for his creation of the image of the poet as prophet and for his own adoption of this role. This approach to Pushkin's death then worked its way from its embodiment in verse into the critical tradition. Some sixty years after Lermontov's poem on Push? kin's death, the philosopher and poet Vladimir Solov'ev took his turn at

70. Mikhail Bakhtin, "Avtor i geroi v esteticheskoi deiatel'nosti," in his Avtor i geroi: K filosofskim osnovam gumanitarnykh nauk, ed. S. G. Bocharov and S. S. Averintsev (St. Peters- burg, 2000), 153.

71. M. Iu. Lermontov, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii, intro. D. E. Maksimov, ed. E. E. Naidich, Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia, 2 vols. (Leningrad, 1989), 2:7-9.

72. Ibid., 2:19. See, for example, an earlier version of the poem cited, "K ***"

("Kogda tvoi drug s prorocheskoi toskoiu . . . ," between 1830 and 1832), "Son" ("Ia videl son: prokhladnyi gasnul den'. . . ," 1830 or 1831), and "Son" ("V poldnevnyi zhar v doline Dagestana . . . ," 1841).

73. Ibid., 2:29. See also "Zhurnalist, Chitatel' i Pisatel'" (20 March 1840), in which the writer refers to his "prorocheskuiu rech'" (2:48).



512 Slavic Review

wrestling with the knotty problem of Pushkin's prophetic status. He was

clearly more bothered than others who had trod this path before him by the poet's inadequate moral profile for the role of prophet. On the one

hand, he was strongly opposed to the current fashion for promoting a

decadent, Nietzschean view of Pushkin as an amoral "prophet of a new or renewed classical beauty."74 On the other hand, he was unable to accept the uncritical view of Pushkin as a moral prophet in his life time. Rather than altogether abandoning the notion of Pushkin's prophetic role, how-

ever, he made a move to reconstitute it on a different basis. In the first

of his three essays on Pushkin, "Sud'ba Pushkina" (The fate of Pushkin,

1897), he advanced a novel and controversial reading of Pushkin's death

from two different perspectives, which, when combined, enabled him to

salvage the image of Pushkin as potential prophet without falsifying his

moral credentials. From a human perspective, Solov'ev took the uncompromising view

that Pushkin was morally responsible for his death, represented as a just form of deserved retribution for a sinful life, culminating in the duel; in

this sense, Pushkin was "killed" not by his opponent's bullet, "but by his

own shot." There was another point of view, however, which Solov'ev took

it upon himself to articulate. From the perspective of "Divine Providence," Pushkin's death was not a cruel act of "fate," but a crucial turning point that brought about his moral salvation. According to Solov'ev, the suffer?

ing Pushkin endured in the three days before his death "released his

moral energies" and enabled him to undergo a complete "spiritual re-

birth" (dukhovnoe vozrozhdenie) ,75 In support of this notion, Solov'ev quotes from Vasilii Zhukovskii's account of Pushkin's transformation in the last

hours of his life ("he became, as it were, differenf ) and in the minutes im-

mediately following his death, when Zhukovskii found Pushkin's face quite "new," devoid of its previous "poetic expression," reflecting "something

74. In his first article on Pushkin, Solov'ev refers scornfully to "the false assessment of Pushkin as a teacher of ancient wisdom and prophet of a new or renewed classical beauty;" "Sud'ba Pushkina" (1897), in Vladimir Solov'ev, Stikhotvoreniia. Estetika. Literaturnaia kritika, comp. and ed. N. V Kotrelev (Moscow, 1990), 356. The essay was first published in Vestnik Evropy in September 1897 and then reissued with substantial additions as a separate booklet in 1898 (the version cited here). In his second article, "Osoboe chestvovanie Pushkina: Pis'mo v redaktsiiu [zhurnala 'Vestnika Evropy']" (1899), ibid., 381-89, Solov'ev

develops this point by mounting a vigorous attack on the "pagan prophecy" of the "or-

giasts" (383), Rozanov, Merezhkovskii, and Minskii, who stressed Pushkin's amoral, aesthetic aspects in their contributions to the 1899 centenary issue of Mir iskusstva. Solov'ev's determination to rescue Pushkin from the camp of the aesthetes (and, through him, the

image and function of the poet in general) explains why he preferred to read "Prorok" as a poem, not about the biblical prophet (contrary to the evidence of the text), but about the poet in his highest, ideal incarnation as a moral figure. See his last essay on Pushkin, "Znachenie poezii v stikhotvoreniiakh Pushkina" (1899), ibid., 395-440; sections 5-11 (408-32) are devoted to "Prorok."

75. Solov'ev, "Sud'ba Pushkina," 360, 365, 360, 361, 364. Solov'ev underlines the contrast between these two perspectives in his last essay on Pushkin, where he reminds the reader once more that, although Pushkin did not at any stage demand "polnogo nravstvennogo pererozhdeniia" from himself or from anyone else, circumstances caused him to experience this moral regeneration during the last three days of his life. "Znache? nie poezii v stikhotvoreniiakh Pushkina," ibid., 424.




akin to a vision, to some full, deeply satisfying knowledge." These details are glossed by Solov'ev as evidence of the "purification of moral aware? ness" and "reconciliation with God and the world" that the poet attained

through suffering and death. This brief period of intense physical suffer?

ing was far preferable to the many years of "moral agony" that the poet would otherwise have had to endure to achieve his final goal.76

Solov'ev's wish to rescue the notion of Pushkin's moral purity, even if

only posthumously, was evidently related to his high regard for the

prophetic ideal expressed in the poet's verse. This can be inferred from his statement that "for Pushkin in 1837, for the author of The Prophet,' the killing of a personal enemy, even at a duel, would have been a moral

catastrophe." If Pushkin had transgressed moral law, it would no longer have been possible for "the mature author of The Prophet' and 'Hermit fathers and immaculate women ...'[...] to burn the hearts of people with a freeprophetic word."11 In asserting that Pushkin could not have continued to write prophetically inspired verse if he had committed the unchristian act of murder, Solov'ev stops short of claiming that Pushkin's death actually turned him into a prophet, but he almost seems to imply this through his persistent references to Pushkin as the author of "The

Prophet." Solov'ev's treatment of Pushkin's death shows how tenacious the estab-

lished strategies for reading Pushkin as a moral prophet could be, even when ostensibly challenged. In accusing the poet of "moral impotence," Solov'ev was boldly dismantling the myth of Pushkin as a pure victim of

fate, martyred in his lifetime; this implied a rejection of most of the com-

monly adopted literary strategies for bolstering Pushkin's moral creden-

tials, outlined above. In the process, however, he established a new myth, which also drew on the notion of cleansing suffering: that of "the great poet reborn through death."78 The notion of Pushkin's posthumous spir? itual regeneration evidently satisfied a profound residual desire to retain some sort of a link between Pushkin as a biographical figure and the

prophetic ideal professed in his verse.79 In this way the ideal image of the moral poet-prophet, encapsulated in "The Prophet," although unrealized

by Pushkin in his lifetime, could still be attached to him in his purified afterlife and was thereby preserved in its potential form as a legacy and model for future generations to develop.80

76. Solov'ev, "Sud'ba Pushkina," 361, 364. 77. Ibid., 364, 363. 78. Ibid., 363, 361. 79. In this sense, Solov'ev's approach to Pushkin was perhaps not as "modern" as

Williams Mills Todd has suggested in his interesting analysis of Solov'ev's three articles on Pushkin. Todd's argument that Solov'ev initiated a more modern approach to Pushkin, based on a close reading of the texts, divorced from the poet's biography, is largely per- suasive but overlooks the extent to which Solov'ev still remained wedded to the biographical approach, including the notion of Pushkin as martyr in relation to his last days; see Williams Mills Todd III, "Vladimir Solov'ev's Pushkin Triptych: Toward a Modern Reading ofthe Lyrics," in Gasparov, Hughes, and Paperno, eds., Cultural Mythologies of Russian Mod- ernism, 253-63.

80. This purpose is consistent with Solov'ev's final formulation of the significance of "Prorok" as the supreme expression of Pushkin's "poeticheskoe samosoznanie," of the



514 Slavic Review

I have considered three ofthe main strategies that served to reinforce Pushkin's moral credentials for the role of prophet, first embraced by Gogol' as an article of faith: the substitution of the notion of poetic or artistic integrity for the principle of moral integrity, the treatment of lit?

erary accounts of purification as evidence ofthe writer's moral standing in real life, and the cult of martyrdom as an aspect of the writer's real or fictive biography, derived from his suffering in life and even extended to the interpretation of his death. Needless to say, the resulting image forged by these strategies bears little relation to the firm distinction between poet and prophet that emerges from a close reading of Pushkin's writings. And

yet, although these strategies neither originated in Pushkin's existing moral qualities, nor truly succeeded in establishing them, this did not pre- vent them from gaining a wide currency. Few writers confronted the ques? tion of Pushkin's moral qualities directly; most preferred to deal with this issue obliquely, through the creation of myths that evolved as a response to the conscious or unconscious need to supply Pushkin with the moral credentials necessary for the role of prophet.

The Legacy of Responses to Pushkin as Moral Prophet

The responses to Pushkin surveyed in the preceding section provide am-

ple evidence in support of the contention that the choice of the Hebrew

prophets as a role model for Russian writers gave rise to a range of strate?

gies designed to reduce the disparity between the strongly defined moral dimension of biblical prophecy and its more fluid realization in a literary context. The strategies that first crystallized around the figure of Pushkin were then extended to other writers, who thereby gained a place in the

developing Russian literary tradition of prophecy. Writers might apply these methods to other writers, or even to themselves to fashion their own prophetic image. Dostoevskii, for example, did both. In his Pushkin

speech of 1880 he took pains to present Pushkin as a prophetic figure, whose hidden significance for the future still awaited interpretation. This

paved the way for his own position as the prophet's successor, a role that was enthusiastically endorsed by the audience, who listened to him "as

prophets were once listened to" and uttered hysterical shouts of "You have

guessed it!" at the end of his speech.81 Dostoevskii dispatched a detailed account of the reception of his speech to his wife on the same day, re?

porting that two old men had told him "You are our saint, you are our

prophet!," followed by shouts of "Prophet, prophet!" from the crowd.82

"vysshei potentsii tvorcheskogo geniia" that he felt within himself: "Pushkinskii 'Prorok' [ . . . ] ne est' [ . . . ] sam Pushkin, a est' chistyi nositel' togo bezuslovnogo ideal'nogo sushchestva poezii, kotoroe bylo prisushche vsiakomu istinnomu poetu, i prezhde vsego samomu Pushkinu v zreluiu epokhu ego tvorchestva i v luchshie momenty ego vdokhno- veniia" (my emphasis); "Znachenie poezii v stikhotvoreniiakh Pushkina," in Solov'ev, Stikhotvoreniia. Estetika. Literaturnaia kritika, 424-25.

81. D. N. Liubimov, "Iz vospominanii," in K. Tiun'kin, ed., F. M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1990), 2:418.

82. See Dostoevskii's letter to A. G. Dostoevskaia of 8 June 1880, in Dostoevskii, Pol? noe sobranie sochinenii, 30/1:184-85.




Dostoevskii's assumption of Pushkin's prophetic mantle was symboli- cally confirmed by the series of highly emotional public readings of "The

Prophet" that he gave around the time of his speech. His technique for

reading this poem involved declaiming it with passionate intensity, not once but twice, and reenacting each stage of the prophet's purification through dramatic physical gestures and emphases of intonation.83 Not

surprisingly, various members of the audience responded to this perfor- mance by seeing the emaciated writer before them transfigured into a liv?

ing incarnation of Pushkin's "Prophet."84 This tradition, once under way, developed its own momentum and was

actively maintained through different forms of public discourse by writers, critics, and readers. Contemporary memoirs generally give the impres- sion that Dostoevskii was universally acclaimed as a prophet, the rightful successor to the role that he had carved out for Pushkin. One may well

wonder, however, whether anyone was bothered by the fact that Dostoev- skii's own character and behavior were manifestly inadequate for the role of moral prophet that he assumed. Such feelings evidently did exist, but were either suppressed or relegated to private forms of communication. This split between public and private discourse is well illustrated by the divided response to Dostoevskii of Nikolai Strakhov, one of the first critics to compose a posthumous account of Dostoevskii's life. In his biography Strakhov created a portrait of the "great man," complete with reference to

prophetic details such as his dramatic reading of "The Prophet" with all its attendant implications.85 And yet this was not the whole story. The

genre of biography can easily turn to hagiography, and Strakhov, the son of a priest and a former seminarist, clearly felt uncomfortable about the one-sided treatment he had given his subject. He revealed the strength of these feelings in a remarkable letter of 28 November 1883 to Lev Tolstoi,

83. According to his wife's notebooks, Dostoevskii put special emphasis on the words ugl' and zhgi and uttered the verb vyrval as sharply as possible; Leonid Grossman, Zhizn' i trudyE M. Dostoevskogo: Biografiia v datakh i dokumentakh (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935), 302. Another memoirist recalls that as he read the line "I serdtse trepetnoe vynul," Dostoevskii would hold his hand out in front of him as if it contained his heart (according to Koni, this reading of "Prorok" took place "on the eve" of Dostoevskii's speech, i.e., on 7june 1880); A. F. Koni, "F. M. Dostoevskii," in Tiun'kin, ed., E M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2:244.

84. The extraordinary notion that Pushkin actually "saw" Dostoevskii before him when he was writing "Prorok" is expressed by E. P. Letkova-Sultanova in her description of a reading, apparendy given about a year before the Pushkin celebrations on 9 February 1879; E. P. Letkova-Sultanova, "O F. M. Dostoevskom: Iz vospominanii," in Tiun'kin, ed., E M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2:446. In a description of a later reading held on 19 October 1880, another memoirist, Vladimir Posse, took the comparison of Dos? toevskii to Pushkin's prophet even further, giving the most remarkably literal application of it every stage ofthe way, and stopping only at the more gruesome details ofthe torn-out heart and burning coal; V. A. Posse, "Iz knigi 'Moi zhiznennyi put','" ibid., 2:439-42.

85. Strakhov describes how Dostoevskii convulsively held down his right hand during his reading of "Prorok," as if restraining himself from a gesture of prophetic command. He also notes Dostoevskii's early faith in himself and sense of literature as a higher, prophetic calling; N. N. Strakhov, "Vospominaniia o Fedore Mikhailoviche Dostoevskom," ibid., 1:514-15,522.



516 Slavic Review

written after he had sent him a copy of his memoir.86 After asking Tolstoi for his opinion of his work, he announces his desire to "make a confes- sion" to him in this context.87 He discloses that he constantly struggled with an irrepressible sense of "disgust" (otvrashchenie) as he wrote the memoir.88 He was repelled by the character of Dostoevskii, whom he describes as spiteful, envious, depraved, given to "animal lust" and to constant explosions of bad temper, and yet unrepentant and utterly con- sumed with vanity. He is particularly nauseated by Dostoevskii's ability to combine these highly negative character traits with a tendency to indulge in sentimental dreams and lofty aspirations and sees his novels as nothing more than an exercise in "self-justification," designed to prove that spiri? tual "nobility" (blagorodstvo) can coexistwith lowbehavior. Strakhov's final verdict is crushing: "Only the elevation of self to exceptional man, only cerebral and literary humaneness?Lord, how revolting it is!"89

We may note that Strakhov is struggling with precisely the dilemma that forms the subject of this article: how can one ascribe prophetic great- ness to a person of manifestly low moral qualities? There is a certain irony in the fact that discussion of this issue takes place alongside constant references to a copy of the Hebrew Bible with a Russian translation that Strakhov had earlier dispatched to Tolstoi, who was learning Hebrew at the time.90 Strakhov is clearly overwhelmed by the burden of his true

feelings about Dostoevskii and feels guilty about suppressing them in his

memoir; he acknowledges that this act of voluntary self-censorship will mean that the truth about the writer will perish, leaving posterity as usual with only the "right side of life" to show off. The truth can only be ex-

pressed in private, in what he refers to as his "little commentary" to his

"Biography."91 Strakhov was openly appealing to Tolstoi to help him overcome his

sense of revulsion. Rather than responding to the critic's damning assessment of Dostoevskii (which is perhaps what Strakhov had really hoped for), Tolstoi turned the tables on him and went straight to the heart of the matter: the fault, he wrote, lay with Strakhov himself, who was the "victim of an erroneous and false attitude to Dostoevskii," which was not his alone, but widely shared "by all." This attitude consisted in "the exaggeration of his [Dostoevskii's] significance and of its exaggeration according to the

86. N. N. Strakhov, Letter to L. N. Tolstoi of 28 November 1883, in Perepiska L. N. Tol- stogosK N. Strakhovym (St. Petersburg, 1913), 307-10.

87. That Strakhov regarded Tolstoi as his spiritual teacher is clear from Strakhov's let? ter to Tolstoi of 6 June 1883. Before setting off to stay with Tolstoi in the summer of 1883, he wrote to him: "Poedu k Vam?v Mekku [ . . . ] chtoby ozhivit'sia, chtoby prikosnut'sia k neistoshchimoi dukhovnoi zhizni"; ibid., 303.

88. In an earlier letter to Tolstoi of 16 August 1883, Strakhov had already hinted at these feelings. After announcing that he had nearly finished his "biography," he added a revealing comment: "Kakoe strannoe iavlenie etot chelovek! I ottalkivaiushchee, i

privlekatel'noe"; ibid., 305. 89. Ibid., 308. 90. Letters of 16 August 1883, 28 November 1883, 12 December 1883; ibid., 305,

309, 310. 91. Ibid., 309.




cliche (po shablonu) of elevating to the rank of prophet and saint a man

who died in the most heated process of the inner struggle between good and evil." In Tolstoi's view, "a man who is all struggle" cannot be turned into a monument with a lesson for posterity.92

It is interesting that Tolstoi, who refused to attend the Pushkin celebrations of 1880,93 was so critical of the Russian tendency to represent writers as prophets that he characterized it disparagingly as a "cliche." In his reply, however, Strakhov ignored the thrust of this perceptive comment and reverted instead to Dostoevskii's faults, objecting that Tolstoi's assessment ofthe writer was "too mild," as his soul (described as a "noth?

ing") was largely impenetrable and therefore unable to accomplish any kind of spiritual "change of direction" (perevorot) .94

Strakhov's doubts about Dostoevskii's status as a "great man" may have been shared by many in private but were rarely expressed in public. Only one outspoken critic stands out: Lev Shestov, whose incisive essay "Pro- rocheskii dar" (The prophetic gift, 1906), written for the twenty-fifth an-

niversary of Dostoevskii's death, put forward a frank and unvarnished as? sessment of the writer's underlying motives (largely based on vanity) and method (pandering to public opinion) for achieving prophetic status.95 In the main, however, Russian writers continued to ignore or to gloss over the problems raised by the absence of basic moral credentials in the authors that their tradition elevated to prophets. Works of literature by authors deemed prophetic were commonly treated as sources of spiritual guidance; Viacheslav Ivanov, for example, regarded Dostoevskii's writings as a source of "true wisdom about ourselves and about God," in which

everything that was only implicit in Pushkin was finally clarified, "as in a sort of Russian Bible."96 This attitude goes a long way toward explaining the proliferation of writers from different literary movements at the turn of the century, who styled themselves as prophets or were seen as such by their contemporaries (prominent examples would include Ivanov, Alek- sandr Blok, Andrei Belyi, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilev, Vladimir

Maiakovskii, Velimir Khlebnikov, Vasilii Rozanov, and Nikolai Kliuev). The significance of this phenomenon goes far beyond the purely lit?

erary and has had important long-term consequences for the development of Russian culture and society as a whole. The exaggerated adula- tion of writers as a source of moral and spiritual authority lent undue

92. Tolstoi's reply to Strakhov, written in early December 1883, was first published in P. Biriukov, comp., Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi: Biografiia, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1908), 2:457.

93. In the words of Liubimov, Tolstoi "blestel svoim otsutstviem"; Liubimov, "Iz vospominanii," in Tiun'kin, ed., F. M. Dostoevskii v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2:403. Tolstoi received three invitations, one of which was personally brought to him by Ivan Turgenev.

94. N. N. Strakhov, Letter to L. N. Tolstoi of 12 December 1883, in Perepiska L. N. Tol- stogo s N. N. Strakhovym, 310.

95. Lev Shestov, Nachala i kontsy: Sbornik statei (St. Petersburg, 1908), 69-91. 96. "Viach. Ivanov o F. M. Dostoevskom [Vystupleniia po dokladu S. N. Bulgakova v

Religiozno-filosofskom obshchestve 2 fevralia 1914]: Rech' V. Ivanova," in L. A. Gogo- tishvili and A. T. Kazarian, eds., Viacheslav Ivanov: Arkhivnye materialy i issledovaniia (Mos? cow, 1999), 64.



518 Slavic Review

weight to their literary prophecies, which were often used to define the

retrospective reading of history as well as visions of the future. The escha-

tological expectations cultivated by the symbolists in literature, for ex-

ample, undoubtedly contributed to the climate of opinion that made it

possible for the revolution to be welcomed by sections of the intelligentsia as the realization of the nation's messianic destiny. In tracing the roots of this attitude, we should remind ourselves that the Slavophile, messianic ideals that determined the course of Russian history were first articulated in a secular context, not by politicians, but by literary writers, who mod?

eled themselves on the Hebrew prophets.97 The distortion of the concept of the prophet that first established itself through responses to Pushkin

therefore had a broad impact beyond literature. The authority conferred

upon the writer by the title of prophet, together with the blurring of the

crucial moral dimension that constitutes the very source of this authority, was a potent and hazardous combination, which became greatly magni- fied when transferred onto a national scale. Vladimir Solov'ev, in his cri-

tique of Slavophile ideology, pinpointed precisely this danger when he

argued that "the sin of Slavophilism was not that it ascribed to Russia a

higher vocation, but that it insufficiently insisted on the moral conditions ofthis vocation," adding a final warning: "let them proclaim still more decisively the Russian people as the gathering Messiah, so long as they remember

that the Messiah must also act like a Messiah, and not like Barabbas."98

97. See PeterJ. S. Duncan, Russian Messianism: ThirdRome, Revolution, Communism and

After (London, 2000). 98. Vladimir Solov'ev, Natsional'nyi vopros v Rossii, vyp. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1891), 332;

cited in Duncan, Russian Messianism, 45 (my emphasis).



the moral dimension of the prophetic ideal: pushkin and his readers

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